


Claws

by kabrox18



Category: Crysis Series (Video Games)
Genre: Angst for days, bird is bad, bird is tired of fighting everyone and just needs a Nap, he's an old fart give him credit, psycho dies i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:57:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8192807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabrox18/pseuds/kabrox18
Summary: Prophet gains another new trick via the suit.[holy shit, sads much?]





	

**Author's Note:**

> tryhard writer kab once again tries to pull off the impossible and write something as cool as legion lmao  
> prophet is a crabby teen under all the carbon and jaded morals, trust me on this

He almost  _ hesitates _ to shoot. His hands ache like nothing else, pain lancing from his fingertips up through the artificial tendons and rubbery black carbon muscle every time he so much as flexes his fingers. He bites his thick tongue to silence a sound of agony as he guns down the other sniper, the lenses of the thermal goggles shattering as he’s blasted back by the high-powered round. He has to stop and hide, lifting his hands to his face and looking them over. They’re bleeding.  _ Profusely _ .

“Prophet,” Psycho comes over comms, sounding painfully clinical. Tensions have been high lately, and it hurts even more than his hands.

“Michael,” he croaks, white hot pain feeling like he’s being skinned from the hands up.

“Don't call me that. At least, on comms. I need you to help with anti-air.”

“It hurts,” he chokes out, too occupied with the slick red-black of his blood seeping from his hands.

“What? What hurts?” The cold shoulder is interrupted by concern, and he chokes back a weak noise. It’s never been this bad before, what did he  _ do? _

“My hands,” he mumbles, relaxing them as much as he can and trying to keep them still. It helps but they still ache so much.

“...On my way,” Psycho says curtly, the system going offline from his end. It's an agonizing drag of what feels like hours before the man arrives, surprised to see the seemingly indestructible Prophet curled on the ground, staring at his bloody hands in pain. He kneels and reaches to touch one, only to get a threatening sound that resembles a cross between a Heavy’s croak and an animal snarl. He holds his hands up placatingly, and Prophet lets out a breath, tongue peeking out to wet his nose.

“What's the matter with them?”

“Bleeding, hurts… pain in my fingers is worse…” Sykes nods, looking down at the hands again. Blood is dripping from them, staining the ground. Suddenly the hybrid  _ screams _ , deafening at this range, and curls defensively around himself, baring his back. He chokes out a sob and flinches at a gloved hand smoothing down his back.

“Easy, big guy… suit must be doing something.” Michael shakes his head, shifting behind Prophet to pet at his back more, fingers working out some of the tension. A few long moments pass, and Claire checks in, dissatisfied with how badly Prophet’s doing.

“Help him back to his feet. At least get to somewhere safe,” she says sternly, the worrying not lost on the suffering hybrid.

“We are someplace safe. Relax, Claire.” He sounds admonishing, even through his gritted teeth. Not that he uses his mouth to really talk, anymore--but that's beside the point.

“How ya holdin’ up, buddy?”

“Better, now. I think it's almost done.” He sighs, head lolling back a bit. “Mind if I lay down?”

“Yeh. C’mere.” Psycho lets him tip back, pillowing the large head on his thighs. The visor glints a bit with the angle the sun hits it, and a few thin scratches are visible. He doesn't stop his hand from smoothing over the sharp, textured dome, toying at the seams between the black and chrome. Prophet purrs, letting the touches relax him further. After a moment he sits up, looking his hands over. They look fundamentally different, although the change isn't immediately apparent.

“I have claws,” he breathes, looking back to his partner.

“What?” The hybrid holds out a hand, showing the way his fingertips split open, showing the tips of almost cat-like claws peeking out.

“How long are they?” He shrugs and flexes his hand, curling the fingers a bit. They extend out to a good centimeter, edges and tips honed and fresh.

“Damn, they’re sharp. Might be good for climbing.”

“As if you need help in that department,” Psycho snipes.

“Ah, I can always use help with that.” They both stand, scooping up forgotten weapons.

“They aren't gonna get in the way of shooting, are they?” Prophet slants his head, rifle to his shoulder as he tests his grip.

“Shouldn't,” is all he says, rolling his shoulders. His hands still hurt like motherfuckers, but at least it’s tolerable now.

\------

The man  _ screams _ , face in shreds. Prophet thinks in between motions that if he could breathe, or had a heartbeat, both would be rushing with adrenaline. He feels more alive than he has in  _ decades _ , and it's the most amazing sensation. Even Alcatraz is awake, filling in the cracks and gaps and greyed morals that make up Prophet.

“It's been too long,” he mumbles as he finishes the man off, flexing his hands. The claws have modified themselves, growing heavier and shaping differently. Now they fold in even more neatly, no remains of them showing when his hands are relaxed. Even shooting, the tips hardly peek out of their slits. He knows it’s getting to him, along with a number of other modifications--he finds himself caring less as time passes. The lack of interest only brings up a dry apathy--he’s stopped caring how or why the suit changes him. It doesn't matter.

What does matter is  _ winning,  _ keeping humanity safe and leaving anything that threatens it wishing it’d never attacked. He's doing a good job with winning, right now. There’s more Cephtech in his veins, and he feels the last pieces of his humanity fall away with every victory.

Sometimes, he feels a pang of regret. It’s rare, and is starting to fade thanks to SECOND. Everything about him is being honed into a perfect, cold-blooded killing machine. Doesn't change his apathy for the matter in the least. At this point he  _ invites _ it, allowing the AI stewing in his skull to make him into a weapon. 

Psycho stopped talking to him years ago. He’s dead now, long-forgotten along with Claire and all the others he met on his path. Sometimes it stings that he stopped interacting with the hybrid willingly, that Prophet had changed so much it triggered the man to abandon him.

Another soldier walks in, weapon up, and meets the same fate as the previous. His target is a corrupt man in a seat of power, currently in the middle of a speech. The bow creaks faintly, and he clenches his teeth along with his whole upper torso, firming up his slightly swaying aim. The tension almost hurts but he ignores it, lining up the tip of the green light with the bastard’s skull. Three whole seconds pass before he releases the pressed-carbon tipped arrow, growling in satisfaction when it hits the mark dead on, the disgusting politician pinned to his podium by the arrow. People  _ scream _ and it takes three more seconds before they start searching for him, but that old question he’d asked Psycho years ago crops up.

_ Are you the hunter or the hunted? I know for  _ damn _ sure which one I am. _

He snorts softly to himself and drops lightly to the ground, footsteps making nary a sound as he uncloaks, shoulder half-pressed to the wall. Footsteps.

Visor brings three outlines, tidy triangles and hexagons lining up their positions and vitals. Their breathing is relatively relaxed, but it’s forced--they figured out who it is.

Not surprising.

The bow is gaining age instead of him, and it groans quietly in protest at being pulled back with 3-something imperial tons. Who uses imperial, anymore, anyway? What was this, 2025?

His annoyance at the thought is dampened by the sound of “ _ fuck, there he is! _ ” and angry red in the lower-left of his vision. It takes about about two-tenths of a second to swap out fire modes, another half-second to twist, then three-tenths to pull back and fire. A second’s worth of killing. The man doesn't even have time to exhale and yell for help by the time he hits the ground. Prophet rolls his neck in relief, and cloaks again, squeezing through the back of the stage and ducking off in an alley to let the suit recharge.

\------

“Too damn close,” he mumbles, folding the bow to sling it over his shoulder. He fades away again to creep out, moving cover-to-cover as he pulls up a map of the city off to the side of his vision, plotting a route to a quieter place that he can stake out for the night; to catch any  _ armed  _ stragglers. SECOND reports a tail--NOVA, full magazine, no armor but a sweatshirt with a dead politician’s name emblazoned over the front.

The tail is  _ dead _ in half-a-heartbeat.

The place he spots is a tiny ledge halfway up a skyscraper--barely more than a windowsill with no window. It's more than enough, and easy to get to with the weighty claws slotted into his fingertips.

He perches steadily on the outcropping, passing balance and maintaining everything to SECOND. It takes the controls without hesitation and he closes everything down. The adrenaline rush has faded and he’s--for lack of a better term--tired as hell.

_ Wonder if this is what Hargreave meant when he rambled about fight or flight chemicals filling your gut, _ the hybrid mused, before passing out.


End file.
